The Boy Who Fell Apart
by facelesswriting
Summary: "Why are we going up to the Astronomy Tower?" It's Harry Potter's eighth year at Hogwarts, the first year without Voldemort hanging over his head, but things aren't as happy as they should be. With no purpose and constant bullying, maybe this was just how things were meant to turn out? WARNING: SUICIDE. TRIGGERING CONTENT.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is not a happy ending. I'd like to warn you before you read this that there is a suicide and that the content can be very triggering. That being said, there is no sexual content, no slash, and very little cursing.**

 **Please do not read this if you think the content will be triggering for you.**

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They'd been at each other's throats all year. Headmistress McGonagall had tried to do something nice for all the returning students for their "eighth year", as people had taken to calling it. When they'd returned, they were told that instead of rejoining their common rooms, they'd be getting private rooms to share with only one other person. Like the first Sorting, the Sorting Hat was placed on each of their heads and it called out a name of who they'd be best suitable roommates with, but for the second time in his life, the Sorting Hat's first choice was wrong, only this time, it had made its choice while atop Malfoy's head instead of his.

It was nearing the winter hols now, and Harry should be used the to constant tortures of the Malfoy heir. Hell, in the beginning, he'd even returned them. But he was done. Finished. He didn't care anymore. He hadn't for a while. Instead, this numb feeling had sort of seeped into his bones.

But now Malfoy had taken it too far. Small parchments were being passed about, all with the same photos on them - Harry in embarrassing states: nightmaring, staring absently at nothing with tears rolling down his face, repeatedly slamming his fist into walls until his fingers were broken and bloody and he had to go see Madam Pomfrey yet again. They all held the same caption: _The Boy Who Fell Apart_.

Harry could feel the goblet in his hand starting to dent, his new, strengthened magic helping his hands to crush it. Headmistress McGonagall was descending the professors' raised dais to see was all the hushed giggles and the fuss was about. Out of the corner of Harry's eye, he saw Malfoy get up, alone, smirking.

His goblet shattered, shards flying everywhere, and the Headmistress changed her direction, heading for him now. When she was halfway down the table he pushed back from it, still ignoring the stunned looks his friends sent him. They never saw him lose control anymore. He never let them.

He followed Malfoy up a flight of stairs. "Come with me," he said as he brushed past.

"And why should I?" Malfoy sneered. When he got no response, he raised his voice, "Oi! Potter! Why should I?"

Harry did not slow his stride, nor raise his voice, calling back, "Because I'll do this with or without you there, but I want you to see what you've done."

Curious and slightly disappointed at Potter's lack of response, Draco followed him. When they'd passed the hall to their chambers on the fifth floor, he began to get nervous. Still, Potter did not turn to see if he was following, did not say anything, did not slow his stride.

Only when they rounded the corner the the spiralling staircase did Draco realise where they were going.

"Why are we going up to the Astronomy Tower?" When he got no response again, he reached out to grab Potter by the shoulder, but Potter was moving too quickly and all he got was a sliver of robe. Potter did not slow his stride. "Potter?"

Draco was starting to think of turning back, but he'd already come all this way. Besides, not that he'd ever admit it, he was starting to get worried. "Potter?"

But Potter was already swinging open the door to the top, letting it catch in the wind and fling back. He walked to the far side of the balcony before turning back to Draco for the first time. That's when Draco realised Potter was crying, slow, silent tears dripping down his face.

"Why are we here?" Draco whispered.

"Why? Why? I'll tell you why. Do you know what happened here? I'll bet you'll never forget. This is where you couldn't kill him. This is where you became too cowardly. But it's too late to be a coward now, Malfoy, there's no turning back."

"Potter, what are you talking about?" Potter was pacing now. His movements quick and fragmented, as if they were only half finished before being forgotten.

Harry swallowed, the numbness sinking into his bones so deep it was an ache. Maybe the Sorting Hat wasn't wrong. His purpose was finished, maybe this was what was supposed to happen, "You know. You know. You know. You know. You-"

"Potter, you're scaring me," Malfoy took a slow step forward, voice calm, like he should have approached Buckbeak.

Potter barked out a laugh, half the sound getting taken by the wind, half the sound mad. Draco knew he should go get help. He knew it, but he couldn't leave Potter in this state.

"I know. I know I'm scaring you. I can see it in your eyes. You always were a coward," Draco didn't even flinch at the accusation; it was true, and he had other things to worry about now. "You meant it as a joke. _Harry Potter, the Boy Who Fell Apart_. But now you're seeing that it isn't a joke. It's not. You _know_. But maybe you don't." He took a step back as Draco took one forward, "But you will."

Silence passed for a heartbeat before Harry suddenly screamed, "I tried so hard! All I wanted was to fit in! And you couldn't even let me have that! I never wanted this! I never wanted any of it! Take it! Take it, damn you!" In a blink, Harry was calm again. "You know what happened up here, and you know what's going to happen. You failed once, but you won't this time. You know it, but you won't admit it to yourself. You know what I'm going to do. And it's all. Your. Fault."

Draco rushed forwards then, but he was too late. His hands clutched around empty air as his boyhood rival tipped over the railing on the edge of the balcony. The Savior of the Wizarding World took flight, lying flat on his back, wind whipping at his robes. The Chosen One kissed his fate as his body kissed the ground, bright eyes piercing Draco from where he watched on helplessly. The Boy Who Lived died broken where his mentor had nearly two years ago.

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 **A/N: Please let me know what you think!**

 **-faceless**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This contains triggering content. This again contains suicide and mentions of suicide. I want to remind you guys that suicide is never the answer. Please do not read if you think this content will trigger you.**

 **I want to dedicate this to CrazyPedantic for their review that got me thinking about what would happen next, to everyone who favorited or followed this, and to fandoms books life for being my friend.**

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Draco Malfoy woke with a start.

Aurors had come and Aurors had gone, and he was left in school in his now unshared room. He didn't know how, but they'd cast spells on him and on the body of Harry Potter, and they could tell that they had not touched one another. He was not punished.

But somehow none of that was true. It seemed to Draco that the moment Harry Potter had taken flight, he'd taken a piece of Draco with him, something that alternatively felt like guilt and a gaping hole. He was unpunished by the law, but nightmares woke him continually now. Mind-Healers had been brought into the school for the students, and it was mandated that he talk to one, but nothing they said could change was Potter had said mere seconds before he died.

This was his fault.

His room was unshared but the presence Potter had left behind took up so much room there was no remaining air. He spent as little time there as possible, but it seemed there was no where else for him these days.

He rose from his bed, tousle-haired and in the clothes he'd fallen asleep in the night before, and left. He didn't check the time, but he went to his first class anyway: potions. He had it with the seventh years as well, since he was technically retaking that year. By the empty halls he knew it was either breakfast or first class had begun, but he didn't speculate which, just walked to the dungeons.

When he opened the door, the class turned to see him. They were already working on their potions, an easy brew because of the tragedy, but the structure of classes would help the students return to their usual lives. A work station had been left empty in the back of the room, and he gathered the materials listed to it, and began his work, pretending not to notice the puffy, red eyes turned his direction, pretending not to notice the Granger girl working by herself in front of him, her usual partner gone now, for good.

Many of the students were nearing completion and as they finished before the class was supposed to be over, they dropped their vials of Dreamless Sleep on Professor Slughorn's desk and left.

Granger's potion was a sludgy mess when she delivered it, but Draco's was a perfect silvery blue when he poured it into a vial and stoppered it nearly twenty minutes after the other students had all gone. Slughorn didn't say anything to him as he waved his wand to vanish his mess, where Snape would have thrown a fit two years ago. But Snape was gone now, just as all the rest.

Draco left, heading towards Herbology. Halfway up the stairs, he realised he'd never turned in his potion. No matter, he'd set it with the collection of unmarked work that was growing in his room. It filled the space that Potter had simultaneously left and was still taking up.

He never made it to Herbology. As he walked across the yards, he passed the base of the Astronomy Tower. No flowers or candles had been left, and it had snowed since the Savior's body had lain there, but still he knew exactly where Harry Potter had died. Somehow he laid there, but he didn't remember walking to the spot, and he stared up at where his face must have been hanging over the balcony as he'd stared at Potter's dead body.

No one disturbed him, a small speck of black on a wide field of white, not even when they returned inside from their lesson. It was the way it had become since he'd killed their Savior. It was as if he had died that day too, only no one mourned him, and his ghost floated through his life as Mr Binns' had, with no one telling him something had changed, but no one acknowledging him either.

When light faded from the sky and sounds from the halls died down, he knew it was dinner. He rose, not bothering to brush the snow from his robes, and walked inside. He didn't know where he was heading, but he passed the Great Hall's closed doors, subdued noise muffling more with every step he took away from it.

He came back to himself on the spiraling staircase to the Headmistress' office, but when he stepped out, there was no one there and he had no recollection on how he got in. He found the Sorting Hat on his head and for the first time since his hand had grasped empty air where Potter had been only half a moment before, he felt the desire to act.

Quietly, hesitantly, and with his voice rough from disuse, he asked the Hat, "Can-" he stopped, one didn't question why the Sorting Hat chose what it did. Either it gave a reason when it gave its decision or it gave no reason at all. But Draco had already come here, some part of him knew this was what he needed, and he tried again, "We were supposed to be with who we'd be most suitable with. Can you tell me why you chose him, why it didn't work?"

The Sorting Hat was an object, capable of reason but no feeling, and it's voice betrayed no sympathy when it sounded in Draco's head, maybe unknowingly and maybe intentionally echoing Harry Potter's words, "You know."

And he did; lying in bed that night, he knew that Harry Potter had been his only hope of redemption, his only hope of becoming a better person. When he'd killed the world's Savior, he'd killed his own as well. It had all fallen apart. He was too toxic. If this is what had happened to the person most suitable to live with him, what would he do to everyone else?

Sleep came uneasily, but it did come for a short while. When he woke once more, covered in sweat and echos of "Come with me… I want you to see what you've done," "It's all. Your. Fault," and "You know. You know. You know. You know. You know," spinning violently though his body. He woke screaming, "I tried so hard!" just as Potter had, but in his dream, Harry had yelled it as he fell.

Sometimes in his dreams, Potter didn't die when he hit the ground. Instead he glared at Draco while the light faded from his eyes. Those always left guilt dripping from him as thick as blood.

Sometimes he simply relieved what happened, leaving him shrieking and shaking for the rest of the day.

But sometimes he was able to catch Potter's cloak before it was too late. Those were always the worst. In the moments between sleeping and waking it was all too easy to forget which was real, which had happened. And when he remember his failure, he could never quite feel his body. He didn't leave his bed those days.

This dream was not that dream however. In this dream, when Harry Potter fell, Harry Potter died. His echoes screaming through Draco, growing louder instead of a fading, but that was the way it should be, Draco decided. It was what he deserved. But that didn't make his punishment any easier to bear.

Draco turned his head to the side, letting his tears fall from where they'd pooled in his eyes. As he did, the vials lined along his bedside table caught his eye: the silvery-blue of Dreamless Sleep, the navy of the Draught of Living Dead, the purple of a low scale pain potion, the yellow of a Calming Draught. He always was a coward.

Draco lay in the snow when they found him. Empty vials of potions scattered about his body. Three was a good number, and the third body to die here would be the last. But no one saw the poetry like Draco had as he had walked to the foot of the Astronomy Tower in the dead of night. No one saw how right it was as they crowded around the body he left as they disturbed his resting place's stillness.

When they left, however, and when his body was taken away on the same stretcher as the one used for the Savior, the stillness returned, and with it, an echo of Harry's words in Draco's voice was revealed, spinning, "You always were a coward," into the wind.

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 **A/N: I want to remind you again that suicide is never the answer. Please let me know what you think.**


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